2 Kings 2:1-14
First, a quick recap: today is the third week of our five-week series focusing on the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations by Bishop Robert Schnase. Many of you have been reading, praying, and pondering the practices as we’ve gone along, and we’ve had very interesting and exciting congregational conversations after each worship service – today’s is at my house and we’ve got snacks all ready, so swing through and look at the Emmanuel pictures and then come on over. On the first week we focused on Radical Hospitality and extending God’s invitation of relationship to others in ways that stretch us. Last week we focused on Passionate Worship and how worship is a time, place, and way of life through which God meets us to satisfy our thirst for relationship with God. Next week we’ll focus on Risk-Taking Mission and Service. And today, we turn our attention to the Christian practice of Intentional Faith Development – the intentional practice of how we as groups of Christians seek to follow Christ, to learn from him, and to be like him.
Today, as members and relatives of Faith celebrate a reunion of Emmanuel Evangelical United Brethren Church, we have a powerful example of Intentional Faith Development. A number of Faith’s members were first members of Emanuel, and neither church would exist at all if it weren’t for the great faith and deep conviction of one woman: Mrs. Fredrick Wiegert. In 1872 Mrs. Wiegert wrote to the Iowa Conference of the Evangelical Church to request that a missionary be sent to the Grand Island area to start churches. Beyond this woman’s great faith and boldness, I am particularly moved by her implicit assumption that people cannot be disciples of Jesus alone. Mrs. Wiegert insisted that a missionary be sent to start churches out of a strong and right belief that we, as followers of Christ, need others in the community of the church to grow in faithfulness and Christ-likeness. We need others to follow as we follow Christ, others to help, guide, and nurture us. Larry’s stories confirm the importance of intentional relationships and small groups in faith development.
Today also, we see the importance of relationships in the life of faith through the story of Elijah and Elisha from 2 Kings. As we read the story of Elijah passing his mantle and authority as a prophet to Elisha, we see a clear example of the life of discipleship: through Elijah, Elisha was invited into community, nurtured and mentored, tested, and confirmed as a disciple, a follower of God.
Some time before our reading today, in 1 Kings 19, just after Elijah hears God’s still, small voice on top of Mount Horeb, God instructs Elijah to “anoint Elisha […] as prophet in your place” (v.16b). Immediately after that, Elijah finds Elisha plowing his family’s fields. Elijah throws his mantle over Elisha. Now, to us this sounds strange, but this act is symbolic. A mantle is like a shirt (or cloak) without sleeves, and culturally one’s mantle represented his personality. To be covered by it, or to have it given to you, was to inherit this person’s identity and vocation. Perhaps, in some small way, it’s like girls in high school wearing their boyfriends’ sports jerseys: by wearing the jersey, she identifies with her boyfriend; their identities are intertwined.
So Elisha, after only a slight protest of wanting to say goodbye to his family, leaves to follow Elijah. He follows him as his servant, but he’s also learning from him. In the space between 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 2, we see Elijah busy proclaiming God’s message of judgment on unfaithful and idolatrous kings. Don’t you think Elisha learned something of what it means to be a prophet of God from these experiences? Indeed, we must assume that Elijah mentored Elisha in the ways of following God faithfully during this time, saying, Follow my example; follow God like this.
As we come to today’s reading, we are told that the time had come for Elijah to pass his authority, identity, and vocation on to Elisha: the companies of prophets in Bethel and Jericho knew it was time, as did Elijah and Elisha. But Elijah doesn’t just hand over his mantle, the symbol of his prophetic authority and power, and go walking off into the sunset. Instead, he tests Elisha: You stay here. I’m going over to Bethel. I’m going over to Jericho. To which Elisha repeatedly replies, Oh no. as the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. Elisha knew that in order to be faithful to God, in order to learn and grow into the man God created him to be, he had to keep following his mentor, even to the mysterious, bittersweet end. And as a result of Elisha’s faithful following, God bestows Elijah’s mantle and prophetic authority on Elisha as Elijah is taken up into the heavens. God confirms Elisha’s faithfulness and empowers him for greater ministry.
The important thing to see in today’s story of Elijah and Elisha, and in the witness of our common heritage with Emanuel Church and Mrs. Wiegert, is that being God’s disciples, being those who follow and learn from God in order that we become like God, is an intentional, communal activity. We Christians don’t follow God faithfully alone. We’re created to be grown by God, and God works through groups. And in case you think I’m making this up, consider the witness of the New Testament as well.
Look at Jesus’ life and ministry: he called a group of people together, walking, living, praying, eating, and studying together. He mentored them. He walked with them through many challenging events – tests of sorts, not unlike that of Elijah and Elisha. And he confirmed their identity as his followers, calling them his brothers and sisters, his witnesses in the world. Likewise, when the Holy Spirit came upon the people at Pentecost, Luke tells us, in Acts 2:42, that the new believers in Christ “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Finally, as you may have noticed on the front of your bulletins, Paul instructed the Corinthian Christians to “follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1Cor 11:1, TNIV). Essentially, Paul is saying, Follow me as I follow Christ; learn from me, and we’ll all grow in Christ-likeness together.
In this, every one of us should know that the point of being a Christian, of being a follower of Christ, of being identified with Christ, is becoming more and more like Christ. Bishop Schnase says it this way in Five Practices: “Growing in Christ-likeness is the goal and end of the life of faith” (64). And what we have seen through our passage today, as well as through the biblical witness as a whole, is that we grow in Christ-likeness in groups. Groups formed with the intention of growing together in Christ-likeness provide God the fertile soil necessary to bear fruit through us.
Gathering in the large group format of worship isn’t enough on its own. Small groups who pray, study scripture, and serve others together provide the perfect growing environment for God to make us more Christ-like. Look at Elisha. He was an Israelite, a member of God’s chosen people. But that large community isn’t the community through which God shaped and formed him for further ministry. Instead, God chose to work powerfully within the close, intentional, mentoring relationship Elisha had with Elijah to form and prepare Elisha for the prophetic ministry to which he’d been called. God specifically chooses to work through intentional relationships of small groups of people to form us into Christ-likeness. We know this is true, for many in this congregation have told me that it was within a particular study group or Sunday school class group that God really nurtured and grew you.
Intentional Faith Development requires more of us than to just come to worship regularly. God calls us to form intentional relationships for the purpose of growing in Christ-likeness. And through such groups, God continues to transform us and empower us for greater participation in Christ’s ministry. If we, as individual Christians, and as a church, are serious about being followers of Christ and growing in Christ-likeness, we must take intentional steps toward this end by submitting ourselves to the work of God in the setting of small groups, gathered together so that God can change us, use us, and complete us. The question for us, and for every age of Christ-followers is simply this, do we truly want to follow Christ and be formed into his likeness, or do we just want to play church and wear crosses?
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